What is the oldest profession in the world?

[The Hallucinating Goose]

I presume we all know what people say is the oldest profession in the world but what do we think actually is the oldest profession?

I would say a hunter because people have always needed to eat of course and before the invention of farming the only way to get food was by hunting animals or foraging for vegetables and other plant life. 

Can you think of some other potential oldest jobs?

[sam4731]

The person who employed the hunter.

[HawkMan]

Profession means Professionals meaning payment. So cavemen hunters didn't get money but paid in kind by women. The women gave themselves to men and got paid with protection and food. So I'd say the "oldest profession" is the oldest profession if you know what I mean. Besides all that, Kings, Emperors and rulers getting taxes, presumably employed tax collectors,  so perhaps them.

Edited February 27 by HawkMan

[The Hallucinating Goose]

51 minutes ago, HawkMan said:

Profession means Professionals meaning payment. So cavemen hunters didn't get money but paid in kind by women. The women gave themselves to men and got paid with protection and food. So I'd say the "oldest profession" is the oldest profession if you know what I mean. Besides all that, Kings, Emperors and rulers getting taxes, presumably employed tax collectors,  so perhaps them.

Okay, that is what profession means if you're being pedantic but I'm a simple Hullensian Goose who is using the word profession as a synonym for job. So, what is the oldest job in the world?

[gingerjon]

Just now, The Hallucinating Goose said:

Okay, that is what profession means if you're being pedantic but I'm a simple Hullensian Goose who is using the word profession as a synonym for job. So, what is the oldest job in the world?

Job in this sense meaning something you wouldn't do but someone is paying you - in cash, in kind, via bartering - so you will do it?

Or job in the sense of something that someone would get paid to do now but maybe didn't get paid to do then?

Potentially in both cases: midwife.

[The Hallucinating Goose]

3 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

Job in this sense meaning something you wouldn't do but someone is paying you - in cash, in kind, via bartering - so you will do it?

Or job in the sense of something that someone would get paid to do now but maybe didn't get paid to do then?

Potentially in both cases: midwife.

Money doesn't necessarily come into it, I'm just talking of a task that humans have always carried out throughout the history of our species. So as I say, humans have always hunted, whether that is cavemen using, say a spear, or modern hunting in terms of, say, fishermen trawling fish. They are both the same task just carried out in different ways, and the modern hunter may be paid to do the job but it isn't necessary for the job to be done, there are plenty of hunters in the world that do it not for money but simply because they need something to eat.

[OriginalMrC]

Im saying tailor. Tailors would have been around from when people first started wearing clothes

[Stirlin]

Scrumping in the Garden of Eden.

[CanaBull]

What about Lookout?

[RayCee]

Gardeners in the Garden of Eden. 

[The Hallucinating Goose]

7 hours ago, CanaBull said:

What about Lookout?

What is a lookout in this context?

[Gerrumonside ref]

A firestarter?  Twisted firestarter?

 

 

 

 

(All apologies Prodigy fans)

 

 

 

[CanaBull]

6 hours ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:

What is a lookout in this context?

Was a little tongue in cheek, but in hunter gatherer societies someone looking out for new food sources, places to stay or even rival groups.

[Bearman]

A mother?

[CanaBull]

2 hours ago, Bearman said:

A mother?

Don’t fathers come before mothers?

[The Hallucinating Goose]

8 hours ago, CanaBull said:

Was a little tongue in cheek, but in hunter gatherer societies someone looking out for new food sources, places to stay or even rival groups.

Someone would have had to establish the societies and groups in the first place.

[Padge]

Philosopher, someone must have sat down and thought what would happen if someone did a job when none existed and then put the idea out there.

[The Hallucinating Goose]

51 minutes ago, Padge said:

Philosopher, someone must have sat down and thought what would happen if someone did a job when none existed and then put the idea out there.

I think perhaps what we need to be considering is, what is a job? 

I say this because if someone sat down and created the idea of jobs, does that mean that them being a philosopher isn't a job because they carried out the task of creating jobs before they existed. 

I suppose a job in this sense is a task that is designated to someone, something particular that one person carries out.

However, the philosopher has not been told to philosophise and yet has still carried out a task. The only thing with this thought is that it would suggest that anything that any human does is a job so how far do you take that? Is breathing a job?

[Padge]

13 minutes ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:

Is breathing a job?

If you have emphysema it certainly is. 

[The Hallucinating Goose]

1 hour ago, Padge said:

If you have emphysema it certainly is. 

Ah, so if something is to be classified as a job, does it depend on the difficulty or the effort that is put into carrying out the job?

[Padge]

50 minutes ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:

Ah, so if something is to be classified as a job, does it depend on the difficulty or the effort that is put into carrying out the job?

Duknow, but we do say, I have a job breathing, I have a job walking, I have a job waking up, we even say, it's hard work breathing, it's hard work walking, it's hard work waking up, go figure.

[The Hallucinating Goose]

34 minutes ago, Padge said:

Duknow, but we do say, I have a job breathing, I have a job walking, I have a job waking up, we even say, it's hard work breathing, it's hard work walking, it's hard work waking up, go figure.

Well I figure whoever is saying those things is a lazy ######.

[Bearman]

Midwife because the first professional had to have had a midperson at their birth.

[wilsontown]

I was going to suggest scribe, but I think there were probably midwife equivalents before there was written language. But how would you know? Do we know anything about that?

I could google this of course but I'm interested in what the rugby league forum reckons.